A standalone archival presentation of a handmade feminist collage by Nikki Craft. The work combines pornographic magazine imagery, campaign buttons, cut-paper labels, and the counter-acronym ACLU - Always Causing Legal Unrest. Its headline reads “We’d Rather Be Destroying Pornography.” Across the image, the words ART, ENTERTAINMENT, FREE SPEECH, and POLITICAL PROTEST are placed over commercial sexual imagery, turning the institutional categories used to protect pornography into part of the artwork’s critique.

The companion article examines the collage as a visual argument rather than an illustration. It discusses the role of buttons such as “Pornography Violates My Civil Rights,” “Learn to Burn,” and “I’d Rather Be Destroying Pornography”; the use of bright color and visual overload; the counter-brand ACLU; and the work’s relation to the broader Pushing Buttons campaign and 1991 Bill of Rights Day records.

Contents

• Original color photograph of the full collage

• Companion article with the artwork reproduced at the top

• Content and provenance notes

Archival Significance

The collage documents how radical feminist anti-pornography activism used political art, appropriation, satire, and portable campaign objects to challenge the legal and cultural prestige granted to pornography.

Its combination of commercial imagery and activist buttons preserves a material history that would be lost if the image were treated only as decoration in a larger file.

Source and Provenance

The exact creation date is not yet established. Nikki Craft identifies the photographed collage as the large wood-and-glass framed artwork she carried to the ACLU Bill of Rights Day event on December 15, 1991.

SFPD Incident Report No. 911701682 documents Matthew Coles seizing this framed artwork and breaking its wooden frame. No photographs were taken inside the event. The surviving color photograph is therefore the principal visual record of the object itself.

Content Note

Contains explicit sexual imagery taken from pornographic publications and confrontational feminist slogans. The material is reproduced as political art and historical documentation, not for erotic use or endorsement.

Priority Keywords / Subject Tags

Nikki Craft, We’d Rather Be Destroying Pornography, Always Causing Legal Unrest, ACLU, feminist collage, radical feminist art, anti-pornography feminism, pornography criticism, feminist political graphics, political buttons, Pushing Buttons, free speech, art and censorship, Pornography Violates My Civil Rights, Learn to Burn, visual culture, feminist archives

Related Records

ACLU-00 overview; ACLU-02 Pushing Buttons catalog; ACLU-03 Bill of Rights Day leaflet; ACLU-04 SFPD Incident Report No. 911701682.

Complete Copyable Description

Title: We’d Rather Be Destroying Pornography: Feminist Political Art and the Always Causing Legal Unrest Collage. Creator: Nikki Craft. Date: undated; associated with the early-1980s through early-1990s ACLU campaign archive. This standalone archival presentation reproduces a handmade collage combining pornographic magazine imagery, campaign buttons, cut-paper labels, and the counter-acronym ACLU - Always Causing Legal Unrest. Its headline reads “We’d Rather Be Destroying Pornography,” while the words ART, ENTERTAINMENT, FREE SPEECH, and POLITICAL PROTEST cross the sexual imagery as part of a feminist critique of the institutional language used to normalize and protect pornography. The companion article analyzes the artwork’s composition, slogans, buttons, counter-branding, and relation to the wider Pushing Buttons and Bill of Rights Day records. The image contains explicit sexual material presented in a critical historical context, not for erotic use or endorsement.

Title: We’d Rather Be Destroying Pornography: Feminist Political Art and the Always Causing Legal Unrest Collage. Creator: Nikki Craft. Date: associated with the early-1980s through early-1990s ACLU campaign archive. This standalone archival presentation reproduces the large wood-and-glass framed artwork Nikki Craft carried to the American Civil Liberties Union’s Bill of Rights Day event on December 15, 1991. The handmade collage combines pornographic magazine imagery, campaign buttons, cut-paper labels, and the counter-acronym ACLU - Always Causing Legal Unrest. SFPD Incident Report No. 911701682 documents Matthew Coles seizing the work and breaking its wooden frame. The artwork analyzes how pornography is protected and legitimized through the categories ART, ENTERTAINMENT, FREE SPEECH, and POLITICAL PROTEST, while feminist opposition is treated as dangerous or illegitimate.

Alternative title: Always Causing Legal Unrest Collage

Creator: Nikki Craft

Date: Undated; associated with the early-1980s through early-1990s ACLU campaign archive

Type: Feminist political artwork; archival companion article

Extent: One color photograph plus illustrated companion article

Language: English

Series: Nikki Craft Archival Project - Always Causing Legal Unrest

Source files: ACLU-01a-We-Would-Rather-Be-Destroying-Pornography-Collage-Original-Photograph.jpg

Publication filename: ACLU-01-We-Would-Rather-Be-Destroying-Pornography-Feminist-Collage.pdf

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